10 key strategic technologies of 2014 according to Gartner


    In October, Gartner published its annual list of “Top 10 Strategic Technologies for Next Year.” Interestingly, Big Data is no longer there. For 2014, the list is as follows:

    1. Mobile device management

    Gartner notes a 2-fold (or possibly even 3-fold) increase in the number of mobile workplaces in connection with the further spread in corporations of the approach to use employees' mobile devices in the “bring your own device (BYOD)” workflow. The most important task in this area over the next 5 years will be the unification of mobile business platforms, since at the moment in this area there is a very wide variety of configuration options (processor, memory, screen size, etc.), which makes it difficult to make universal products for business. The main problem in this area will be the determination of the optimal balance between the advantages of this approach from the point of view of IT and from the point of view of information security (corporate data processed on employees' mobile devices).

    2. Mobile applications

    The mobile application market will grow, and the applications themselves will become more complex. Java Script and HTML5 will become the main technologies for developing enterprise applications. It is assumed that there will be a evolution of the user interface of mobile applications from an approach focused on the emotions and actions of the user to an approach that changes user behavior patterns. An example would be, for example, various mobile geolocation information services for smartphones or Google Glass.

    3. "Internet of things"

    The idea is to make more and more things manageable through the network. As the main idea of ​​this strategic technology, Gartner calls the combination of 4 components: people, information, things and geolocation information (the latter means the future mass distribution of GPS sensors built into various devices).

    4. Hybrid clouds and IT-like-broker-cloud-services

    It is already obvious that in the foreseeable future there will be many cloud providers (they will be different in size and type of provided cloud services). Many companies currently choose a combined approach when choosing clouds, using private and public clouds together. At the same time, various types of clouds used in a particular company will need to be integrated into a single IT infrastructure of the enterprise, and the information contained in them will need to be processed and analyzed in a uniform manner. Gartner expects the growth of technologies that implement the functions of integration and aggregation of different types of clouds.

    5. Client-cloud architecture

    Active distribution of mobile applications leads to the spread of client-cloud architecture, which differs from client-server architecture in at least two essential properties: (1) the client and the cloud are separated by a WAN network section (there may be a large network delay, paid traffic, limited channel width) and (2) a mobile device is used as a client platform (that is, the processor, memory and disk resources are limited on the client, and developers are required to use energy-efficient algorithms). Gartner expects a synthesis of engineering and technology experience in this area of ​​information processing.

    6. The era of personal clouds

    People have more and more personal devices, most of them are connected to personal clouds (Dropbox, Google drive, Yandex drive, mail servers, etc.). Moreover, already now many people are using several devices connected to a personal cloud at once, and none of these devices is the “main” in terms of data storage. Thus, the transition of the role of the data center from personal devices to the personal cloud is observed.

    7. All data center resources will become programmable

    Gartner claims that the time has come to introduce the term “SDx” - a collective concept that means the ability to program any type of infrastructure (computing, network, storage). Currently, these include: SDN (network), SDDC (data center), SDS (storage) and SDI (infrastructure). The task of next year 2014 is to develop standards in this area to facilitate the implementation of SDx in data centers with the possibility of effective interaction between them, which is very popular in the context of the development of different types of cloud services.

    8. Web-Scale IT

    Gartner defines Web-scale IT quite abstractly: "the concept of providing scalable cloud services for corporations anywhere in the world through public networks." The concept includes 6 elements: data centers, web-based architecture for providing services, programmable management, flexible business processes focused on collaboration of technology, and corporate culture of a “learning organization”. Gartner anticipates the further development of this concept, and also notes that it is global cloud service providers (and not corporations) that are currently determining the development strategy for this area.

    9. “Smart cars”

    Gartner expects this new trend to become quite famous in 2014. “Smart machines” are intelligent personal assistants, autonomous robots, intelligent global industrial systems and other self-learning devices, systems or applications. Gartner predicts that it is this trend that is the most “breakthrough” in the top ten key technologies of 2014, since it is precisely the “smart machines” that combine many engineering and scientific areas of information technology, and also that this trend will have a long-term development, and by 2020 year, we can all see, finally, the massive widespread adoption of "smart machines".

    10. 3D printing

    According to Gartner, global shipments of 3D printers will grow by 75% in 2014 and 100% in 2015. Despite the fact that expensive factory versions of these devices have been around for 20 years, the mass distribution of 3D printers starting at $ 500 is predicted by Gartner from 2014-2015 years

    Additional materials:

    [1] Gartner Press Release
    [2] Article “Here's Why 'The Internet Of Things' Will Be Huge, And Drive Tremendous Value For People And Businesses" .
    [3] Computerre article “The onset of smart cars: Gartner predicts revolutionary changes in the labor market”

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